


Woman's Constancy

by nimblermortal



Category: Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 16:04:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3656505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimblermortal/pseuds/nimblermortal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quick oneshot exploring Loki's relationship with a woman he doesn't have to care about. After all, he can do anything he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woman's Constancy

Loki agreed to marry Sigyn because it was such a good joke. The god of lies, of mischief, of giddiness and flitting about, and a woman known for her faithfulness, a prodigal goddess of loyalty. If he were to marry, it could only be for such a joke.

He did not know why Sigyn agreed to marry him. When he asked her, she said, “I will see you, ere I die, lie more constant yet than I.”

“Lie, yes,” Loki said, and thought nothing more of it. He was not faithful to her; he slept with Angrboda, and with Sif, with Freya and with Thor. He was no more faithful to himself, or he would not have taken such delight in lying to his brother, or in betraying his sworn home. Betrayal was Loki’s own version of fair, twisting ever further in on itself as he strove desperately to betray himself further to stay even, and then to betray others lest this justice be taken as a sort of moral code.

Alongside this ever-tightening spiral ran Sigyn’s lifethread in a pure, constant, steady white, welcoming him home with the same quiet words whether he came reeking of another woman’s bed, or of the pure ice and fire that meant he had done the All-Father’s bidding, or of fish and old grass that lay in more political betrayals. He hated her for that constancy and then, because he always turned everything inside out and dirtied it, he found he hated himself, which was nothing new, and loved her.

She knew it when he discovered this; he could see that in her eyes. She may have known before he did, for she was clever in her stolid plodding. He tried to hate her for it, and couldn’t. He brought her a basket woven from never-you-mind and took her for a picnic on a riverbank to talk of gods and children.

“I love you,” he said, to explain himself, “because you are everything I am not, and never can be.”

She held her hand against his cheek, and her eyes were mirrors in which he saw every betrayal he had committed, and every one he would commit before Ragnarök cut the whole rotten chain short.

“Do not speak of what you do not know,” she said, and so he did not speak. Not then. Sometimes, to her, not for months or years on end. Once for centuries, and when he saw her hands cupped around the rough wooden bowl, he choked on a bitter laugh.

“Of course it would be you,” he said, and felt the brush of her skin on his cheek, and closed his eyes so he could memorize the sensation.

“I have not yet been to Hel to meet your daughter,” she said. “I have hardly seen the outside of our house since we were married; but I have lived more fully than you might dream, and I live still. And I tell you, you are more constant than I have dreamed of being.”

“If I am constant, it is because I am bound still by chains forged from our son’s entrails,” Loki snapped.

“All constancy has its price,” said Sigyn, as though she would never be moved by anything. “I have found mine worth paying.”


End file.
